Thursday, February 26, 2015

Robots

... Wonder if automation technology is near a tipping point, when machines
finally master traits that have kept human workers irreplaceable.

You guys probably need to make sure you make it into the top of the income distribution:

... Rather than killing jobs indiscriminately, Mr. Autor’s research found
automation commandeering such middle-class work as clerk and
bookkeeper, while creating jobs at the high- and low-end of the market.

This
is one reason the labor market has polarized and wages have stagnated
over the past 15 years, Mr. Autor said. The concern among economists
shouldn’t be machines soon replacing humans, he said: “The real problem I
see with automation is that it’s contributed to growing inequality.”

Read the whole thing, entitled "What Clever Robots Mean for Jobs" in the February 24 issue of The Wall Street Journal".
* This is required, but it's not like there's a huge amount of exam-worthy content you need to worry about. Just some viewpoints on stuff that macroeconomists need to be thinking about.